Sampooran Singh Gulzar or Gulzar is popularly known as one of the best writer, lyricist of Indian Hindi Film Industry. His song lyrics has created milestone in the film industry. He recently received a critical acclaim for his lyrics in films like Omkara (2006) and No Smoking (2007). He is also a poet, director, script writer and screenplay writer. Gulzar has won 18 Filmfare Awards and three National awards along with several other awards. He was also honored with Padma Bhushan in 2004 by Indian Government, which is the third highest civilian award in India.

Gulzar was born on 18th August, 1936 in a Sikh family of Deena (currently in West Punjab, Pakistan). After the India-Pakistan partition he moved to Delhi, India. Gulzar started his career as assistant to filmmakers Bimal Roy and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. He was also influenced by Hemnat Kumar, with whom as well he worked as assistant. While working with those legendary figures, Gulzar honed his skills and gained the required confidence.

A first break came his way as lyricist with Bimal Roy's film Bandini (1963). For the film he had written the song 'Mora Gora Ang Lai Ley', which was a huge hit. But the film Kabuliwala (1961) gets released first, for which also he had written lyrics. For Kabuliwala he had written songs like 'Ganga Aaye Kahan Se' and 'Ai Mere Pyaare Watan'. These two songs are also amongst his hit songs.

Gulzar also worked as a director. His first film as director was Mere Apne in 1971. The film depicted the generation gap between two characters- one the old widow Meena Kumari and another a young unemployed youth Vinod Khanna. Gulzar found a great partnership with actor Sanjeev Kumar after working in Koshish (1972). Their partnership continued for films like Aandhi, Mausam, Angoor and Namkeen.
His other directions includes film like Parichay, Achanak, Khushboo, Ijaazat, Lekin, and Maachis.

His film Aandhi had created some controversy for the time. It had a role, played by Suchitra Sen which was based on Indira Gandhi depicting the imposition of the emergency. The film was banned for some time. Till date Gulzar has directed 17 movies. His last directed film was Hu Tu Tu in 1999.

He also has directed the TV serial Mirza Ghalib. It was tribute to the legendary poet Mirza Ghalib. It was one of the outstanding TV serial which was shown on national TV channel Doordarshan in 1988. He had also written dialogues for many films, for many of which he has won Filmfare Award. He also had done script writing and screenplay writing.

His every work includes the detailed examination of human sensibilities. Also he uses characters and concepts from literature and other films. His songs are best known for using simple words in a complicated phraseology. He also pioneered the new thing about writing poems, which is called Triveni. Triveni consist of writing poem stanzas with three lines.

Meghna Gulzar wrote one book on father Gulzarsaab called 'Because He is...'.